Scott Walker. (RIP March 2019)

I don't know enough of those artists. Do I really want to hear Adam Green sing Scott Walker????

T&d was great cause it had trained singers doing semi-operatic settings of the songs but you also had to put up with losers like albarn trying to sing farmer in the city

Dang that's rather disappointing. Obv I knew there'd be no actual SW performance but something like tilting & drifting was my hope. Oh well.

yessssssssss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXhD1dDSVj4

Finally got round to playing the box set! Told you I was saving it!

The girls love "Jackie" btw..

'How far have you got?'

Well, I liked 2 better than 1, and I'm halfway through 3 and liking it more than 2..

3 is the generally considered the best. I think there are songs on 2 and 4 as good as any on 3, maybe better, but 3 is the most consistently good and interesting

nah, 4 is next-level

I always wondered why 4 didn't make the chart at all after 3 top ten albums and the fourth ".. Songs from the TV show" only just missing the top ten..

Now, I can sort of understand: three albums in one year? Something's gonna give!

the orchestrations and brel (and original songs) on 3 are all-time but he really comes into his own as a songwriter on 4 which sets it apart imo. xp

Just checked, I'm wrong: Four top ten albums, then totally off!

4 has "the seventh seal," right? that's a point not in its favor IMO.

I mean, I love the music, but the lyrics make want to hide in a corner.

I think he comes into his own as a songwriter w/ 3. actually, I think this is kind of unquestionable.

Side one
No. Title Writer(s) Length
1. "It's Raining Today" 4:02
2. "Copenhagen" 2:22
3. "Rosemary" 3:22
4. "Big Louise" 3:10
5. "We Came Through" 1:59
6. "Butterfly" 1:42
7. "Two Ragged Soldiers" 3:07
Side two
No. Title Writer(s) Length
8. "30 Century Man" 1:29
9. "Winter Night" 1:45
10. "Two Weeks Since You've Gone" 2:48
11. "Sons Of" Gérard Jouannest, Jacques Brel, Mort Shuman 3:45
12. "Funeral Tango" Jouannest, Brel, Shuman 2:56
13. "If You Go Away" Brel, Rod McKuen 4:57

i mean he almost--ALMOST--emerged fully formed on the first LP. see "such a small love," above, plus "always coming back to you."

this all makes more sense if you've heard the walker brothers LPs, which are all hit-and-miss but each features a few scott-penned songs that are pretty ambitious and great, at the least "promising."

4 was originally released under the engel name no?

yeah

i think it was only on the spine maybe? it was definitely packaged as some kind of mysterious Statement from the Artiste. he was nothing if not pretentious.

you're an ass

????

i meant it in a good way. scott walker is god.

maybe i should include more emoticons for the benefit of slow joes in the back row.

will try again:

i think it was only on the spine maybe? it was definitely packaged as some kind of mysterious Statement from the Artiste. he was nothing if not pretentious. ;) :) LOL LOVE HIM

God the track list on 3 makes me dizzy.

i, too, love them all and will probably love what i haven't heard yet. 4 is my favorite and i think it compares very favorably to 3. fin

yeah nobody is arguing that 4 isn't awesome. they are ALL awesome (meaning LPs 1-4). hell, I even like the last few tracks on Til the Band Comes In and listen to Stretch for pleasure.

sorry, i take it back

4 has "the seventh seal," right? that's a point not in its favor IMO.

― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, March 25, 2014 10:32 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sod the lyrics, it's an amazing starting track to an amazing record. i still have trouble separating and also listening sequentially to the first three albums - they all seem very much part of the same work with strong songs and not so strong songs, but 4 is a different very separate work in my eyes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XprkIbphGf8

I usually find the Seventh Seal a bit too embarrassing to listen to. Just those opening lyrics are soooo on the nose. And the songs are great...but the arrangement is more conventional that 3, it's almost more genre in a way. I love it but I think it sounds more dated than 3. It trades the romance of much of the first 3 for something a bit more r&b/rock or something.

My Scott Walker playlist opens with Prologue/Little Things That Keep Us Together before going into selections from 1-4 chronologically.

i just listened to 3 all the way through. it's really great but i don't agree that 4 has aged. i find the first three a little bit over-flamboyant in places. guess you could say the same about some parts of 4 though, granted.

Boy Child is the song on 4 that sounds like it would fit on 3.

It was originally released in late 1969 under his birth name, Noel Scott Engel (the name Walker did not appear on the original album sleeve)

Selzer otm

Scott 4 reminds me of Bryter Layter for some reason. Is that strange?

No not at all. Stott's way with the orchestra more overtly eerie tho.

boy child has some amazing grace notes in the string arrangement, hoo boy

makes me think of outer space

He's super-pretentious! Bt that's part of why I love him, I don't think he (or anyone, prob) is capable of fully achieving what he aims at, bt his attempts're wonderful. The Drift is one of the most powerful art experiences I've ever had

yeah, you have to laugh (and so does SW, I think) when these euro-art dudes are slamming sides of beef to get just the right sound of human degradation or whatever. it's almost a parody of self-serious modern composition. but the results are completely awesome.

Just heard "30 Century Man" blimey, no wonder Julian Cope likes him, it sounds more like him than he does!

I know you were using "pretentious" in a complimentary sense but I mean that's his actual name, how is it pretentious to put a record out under your actual name

xps obv

The quote "a man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened" (credited to the French-Algerian writer Albert Camus) appears on the back of the sleeve of the album.

it's not pretentious to use your name; IIRC there was no name whatever on the original front and possibly back cover. sort of like that palace album. but i might be wrong.

i wasn't using pretentious in a complimentary sense, really. i just think his greatness is kind of inextricable from his pretentiousness.

It's pretentious in the sense that he's shedding his stage name. No more time for childish things. Like when Johnny Cougar became John Cougar then John Cougar Mellencamp then just John Mellencamp. Same exact thing.

wait until he writes a novel and uses the name J.C. Mellencamp

tbf I think the cougar/mellencamp thing was mostly him trying to gradually get away from a stupid stage name that his manager had foisted on him as a young man

whereas "scott walker" sounds great. or did, until a certain someone was elected governor here.